Reference:216570

Explorer II -> 216570

The 216570 is the 42mm Explorer II. Rolex launched it at Baselworld 2011 to mark the family's fortieth anniversary, replacing the long-run 40mm 16570, and discontinued it in 2021 alongside the 226570 announcement at the fiftieth. Caliber 3187 sits inside, an evolution of the 16570's 3186 with Paraflex shock absorbers, the blue Parachrom hairspring, and a Breguet overcoil. Two dial options carried through the run: a matte black dial and the white "Polar" dial that has anchored Explorer II identity since the 16550. The most-quoted feature on launch was a half-orange 24-hour hand returned to the watch as a callout to the original 1655 Freccione, the only Explorer II between 1971 and 2011 that wore an orange hand at all.

The 216570 is also the reference where the Explorer II grew up into a modern sport Rolex on its own terms. The case width jumped 2mm from the 16570's 40mm to a full 42mm and the dial moved to Maxi proportions, with applied indices and Mercedes hands enlarged in the same idiom Rolex had brought to the Submariner and GMT-Master II a few years earlier. The 24-hour bezel stayed where it had been since 1971: fixed, machined steel, engraved markings filled with black paint, no ceramic. That specific resistance to the Cerachrom transition is part of what carries the design line forward across five Explorer II generations and what most cleanly separates the 216570 from the GMT-Master II it sits next to in the catalog.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	216570
family	Explorer II
production	2011 to 2021
movement	caliber 3187, COSC, 28,800 vph, 31 jewels, 48-hour power reserve
case	42mm 904L Oystersteel, approximately 12.5mm thick, approximately 49mm lug-to-lug
crystal	sapphire with Cyclops over the date
water resistance	100m
crown	Twinlock screw-down with crown guards
bezel	fixed 24-hour, stainless steel, engraved black-filled markings
dial	matte black or white "Polar"; Maxi indices and hands, Chromalight lume
24-hour hand	half-orange, black-painted base; restored as a callout to the 1655
bracelet	Oyster, brushed centre links with polished flanks, Oysterlock with Easylink 5mm extension
rehaut	engraved repeating ROLEX with serial at six
predecessor	16570
successor	226570

Where it sits in the line

The 216570 takes the architecture the 16570 had run for twenty-two years and rebuilds it for a 42mm case. Sapphire crystal, Cyclops, fixed engraved 24-hour steel bezel, true GMT independent-hour function, Mercedes hand set, red or orange 24-hour hand — that lineage is intact. What changes is scale. The case widens 2mm, the lugs lengthen, the dial markers and hands step up to Maxi proportions, and the bracelet picks up the Oysterlock-with-Easylink combination Rolex had introduced on the late Sea-Dweller and the modern Submariners. The wrist presence shifts from "modest GMT" to "full sport Rolex".

The half-orange 24-hour hand is the visible historical citation. The original 1655 Freccione carried a fully orange arrow-tipped 24-hour hand, dropped from the 16550 and 16570 in favour of a red baton. The 216570 brings orange back, now as a black-and-orange split: black on the inner half closest to the centre, orange on the outer half that does the actual reading against the bezel. Brice Goulard's launch coverage at Monochrome reads it as a deliberate forty-year retrospective on the family rather than a styling choice, and that reading has held in subsequent collector writing.

On the way out, the 216570 hands off to the 226570 at the fiftieth anniversary in 2021. The successor keeps the 42mm case but moves to caliber 3285 with the Chronergy escapement, lifts the power reserve from 48 to 70 hours, narrows the inner faces of the lugs, widens the bracelet by roughly 1mm, and adds antireflective coating on the inside of the crystal and Cyclops. On the Polar dial, the 226570 also moves the hands and markers from black-lacquered to white-gold matte PVD; on the black dial, the hands change from partially blackened to fully polished. The 216570 is the last Explorer II with the older 3187 movement and the last with the 21mm bracelet at the lugs.

Production outline

The 216570 ran for ten years with no major mid-cycle rework. There are no V1/V2/V3 dial generations to map and no caliber transition mid-run; what changed sat at the edges. Random serials were already in place from launch, the engraved rehaut was standard from the first watch, Chromalight lume was uniform across the production, and both dials shipped from 2011.

What deserves note inside the run is the watch's relationship to the 50th-anniversary 2021 transition. Rolex kept the 216570 in active production through the early part of 2021 while the 226570 was announced and rolled out alongside, the same overlapping-window pattern that the 16570 had with the 216570 at its own end. Sotheby's catalog descriptions occasionally date 216570 examples to "circa 2010" — those reflect catalog dating rather than a true pre-2011 delivery, since the Baselworld 2011 launch is the documented start.

A small number of military and special-order branches sit inside the run. They are catalog-evident through Sotheby's lots: a 48-piece UK Attack Helicopter Force series circa 2014–2015 and a series of SAS-issued examples engraved with the Special Air Service winged-dagger crest. Both are individually engraved with the recipient's initials or serial and are described in Special branches below.

Movement notes

Caliber 3187 powered the 216570 across the full run. It is a 28,800 vph automatic with 31 jewels, 48-hour power reserve, hacking seconds, an independently-setting local hour hand, and quickset date. Mechanically the 3187 is an evolution of the 16570's late 3186: the same general architecture, with an enlarged base plate to fit the wider 42mm case, the addition of Paraflex shock absorbers, and the blue Parachrom hairspring with Breguet overcoil that Rolex had been rolling out across the sport line. COSC certification is rated at -2 / +2 seconds per day in the Time+Tide review (James Robinson, 2020), aligning the 3187 with Rolex's Superlative Chronometer figure of the period rather than the tighter post-2015 in-house specification.

The independent hour is the GMT complication that matters. On the wrist the 216570 functions exactly as the 16570 did before it: pull the crown to the second position, set the local hour hand forward or back in one-hour jumps, and the 24-hour hand stays on home time against the fixed bezel. The complication had been on the Explorer II since the 16550 and caliber 3085; the 216570 inherits it.

What the 3187 does not have is the seventy-hour power reserve and Chronergy escapement that the 226570's caliber 3285 brought in 2021. Brice Goulard's Monochrome hands-on at the 226570 launch reads the movement step as the most consequential change of the generation, and the 216570 comes out of that comparison as the older platform — competitive against the rest of the late-five-digit and early-six-digit sport line, but a generation behind once the 3285 arrived.

Dial map

The 216570 carries the same two-colour split that the 16570 ran for twenty-two years: a matte black dial and the white Polar. The internal subdivisions inside each colour that crowded the 16570's run are absent here. There is no tritium-to-Luminova-to-Super-LumiNova lume progression to map, no Swiss-only sub-window, no font-spacing or serial-band typography branches. Chromalight (blue glow) is uniform across all production. SWISS MADE printing at six is uniform across all production.

What the 216570 dial does carry is the Maxi treatment. Applied indices are larger than on the 16570, Mercedes hands are wider and longer, the 24-hour hand reads more heavily on the dial, and the printing reads at a different visual weight than on the 16570. Some 16570 collectors have read the Maxi proportions as the loss of the older watch's restraint; others read them as the dial finally matching the case it was always trying to fill.

Black dial

The black dial is the volume seller across the run. Glossy black background, white-gold applied indices with Chromalight plots, Mercedes hands and a baton seconds hand also filled with Chromalight, a half-orange 24-hour hand with a black-painted inner half, white minute track, and the standard four-line Explorer II printing with depth rating across the bottom. Date window at three under the Cyclops. The black-dial 216570 reads at a distance as a Sub-Date with a fixed bezel and a coloured GMT hand — the closest the modern Explorer II has come to the GMT-Master II in dial tone.

Polar white dial

The Polar 216570 is the more-collected variant and carries the watch into most of the editorial coverage. Matte white background, applied indices framed with black surrounds that hold the Chromalight plot, black-lacquered Mercedes hands with matching black outlines on the white-gold body, and the same half-orange 24-hour hand against the white field. The printing layout is identical to the black dial. Against the white background, the half-orange hand reads strongly, and the dial as a whole is brighter and more legible than its 16570 predecessor.

The 226570 launch in 2021 changed the Polar dial's hand and marker treatment from black lacquer to white-gold matte PVD. The 216570 is the last Polar Explorer II with the older black-lacquered hands and indices — a quiet generational difference that takes a side-by-side look to read.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

Case

42mm Maxi case profile: Twinlock crown, crown guards, engraved 24-hour bezel.

42mm in 904L Oystersteel, approximately 12.5mm thick, approximately 49mm from lug to lug. The case wears as a sport Rolex of its generation rather than as a scaled-up 16570; the lugs are wider, the crown guards larger, and the overall mass higher. There are no lug holes — the 216570 launched with the no-holes case the 16570 had transitioned to in its V4 era. The watch is rated to 100m, the same depth rating the Explorer II has carried since the 16550.

Bezel

The bezel is fixed, non-rotating, machined from stainless steel, and engraved with a 24-hour scale that is then black-filled. That construction is what continues to separate the Explorer II from the GMT-Master II: the GMT-Master II carries a rotating Cerachrom ceramic insert; the Explorer II keeps the steel ring engraved into the case top. The 216570 carries the construction forward from the 16550 and 16570 unchanged in concept. Visually, what changes is the bezel's proportion against the wider case: the same engraved 24-hour ring reads thinner on the 42mm 216570 than it does on the 40mm 16570.

Crystal

Flat sapphire with a Cyclops magnifier over the date window at three. No antireflective coating on the inner face — that arrives with the 226570 in 2021. The 216570's crystal reads as a standard Rolex sport-line sapphire of the period.

Crown

Twinlock screw-down with the matched crown-guard architecture from the 16570, scaled for the wider 42mm case. The crown wears the standard Rolex coronet and the pair of dots that mark Twinlock construction. The 100m water-resistance rating is carried by the Twinlock and the screw-down caseback.

Rehaut

Engraved with repeating ROLEX text around the inside of the chapter ring, with the serial number engraved at six. Standard across the production from launch — there is no plain-rehaut window on the 216570, since Rolex had finished rolling out the engraved rehaut across the sport line by 2008–2009. Random serials are also uniform; the alphabetic serial-letter system had ended in 2010.

Bracelets, end links, and clasps

Bracelet

Oyster construction in 904L Oystersteel. The centre links are vertically brushed; the flanks are polished to a mirror finish. The bracelet width at the lugs is 21mm — the 226570 widens this to 22mm in 2021, one of the more visible generational tells. Solid links throughout. The bracelet reference number is variously cited as 78390 or 78390B across dealer copy and forum threads; published editorial coverage and Sotheby's lot descriptions describe the bracelet by construction rather than by reference number. The construction is consistent: a brushed-and-polished Oyster matched to the 42mm case.

Clasp

The clasp is the Oysterlock folding clasp with a flip-down Easylink comfort extension that adds approximately 5mm of length without tools. Easylink is a binary in-or-out extension rather than the continuous Glidelock micro-adjustment Rolex had introduced on the modern Submariner. The 216570 never received Glidelock — neither did the 226570. That puts the Explorer II line at a different bracelet generation than the contemporary Submariner 116610LN and GMT-Master II 116710BLNR, which had moved on. Clasp date codes mark the bracelet's production date, not the watch head's, per the standard clasp-code rule.

Packaging

Standard Rolex green-and-white box of the 2010s with COSC certificate, white plastic warranty card, booklets, and hang tags. The warranty card format Rolex used through the 216570's run is the credit-card-style white card that had replaced the older paper card in 2006. The packaging is period-correct rather than reference-specific; the same box and card configuration shipped with every steel sport Rolex of the same window.

Special branches

UK Attack Helicopter Force

A 48-piece commissioned series for the British Army's Attack Helicopter Force, delivered in 2014 and 2015 with caseback engravings depicting an Apache helicopter against a Union Jack, individually numbered by issue, and engraved with the recipient officer's name. The watches are otherwise standard 216570 specification: white Polar dial, caliber 3187, Oyster bracelet. Sotheby's catalogued No. 2/48 as Lot 2 in Watches Online December 2019, with an estimate of 12,000–18,000 GBP; the lot was offered to the Senior Flying Instructor who had been operating Apache helicopters since 1999. The series is the most-documented 216570 military commission.

SAS-issued

A separate series of 216570 examples was issued through the Special Air Service from 2012, with casebacks engraved with the SAS winged-dagger crest, the recipient's initials, and a personal serial number. Sotheby's catalogued one such example as Lot 2 in Fine Watches Including Masterworks of Time, November 2021, with an estimate of 17,000–28,000 GBP and a catalog note referencing a comparable example that had hammered at GBP 35,000 at a recent Sotheby's sale. The SAS branch is dial-standard (black, in the catalogued examples) and otherwise identical to a service-issue 216570.

Retailer-modified PVD

A small number of 216570 examples have circulated with aftermarket black PVD coating applied by retailers rather than Rolex. The PVD is non-factory and not endorsed by Rolex. Watches with original surfaces command a premium over PVD-coated examples on the secondary market, and any 216570 listed with a "black PVD" or "DLC" surface should be read as a retailer modification rather than a Rolex variant.

Auction record

The 216570 trades as a recent-discontinued sport Rolex rather than as a vintage collector reference. Standard examples sit in the lower five-figure range at major-house auctions; military branches sit substantially higher.

sale	date	dial	year	estimate	notes
Sotheby's, Watches Online, Lot 138	April 2020	black	c.2010	$7,000–9,000 USD	standard 216570; cal. 3187 confirmed
Sotheby's, Watches Online, Lot 2	December 2019	white Polar	c.2015	£12,000–18,000 GBP	UK Attack Helicopter Force No. 2/48
Sotheby's, Fine Watches Including Masterworks of Time, Lot 2	November 2021	black	c.2010 (issued 2012)	£17,000–28,000 GBP	SAS-issued; comparable hammered £35,000
Sotheby's, Fine Watches, Lot 246	June 2023	white Polar	c.2015	$8,000–12,000 USD	standard Polar; service card 2021

The split between standard examples in the high four to low five figures and military-branch lots in the high five figures has been the consistent pattern across the post-2019 auction record. Standard 216570 lots ride below the 16570 Polar premium tier and well below any vintage Explorer II reference; the SAS and Apache military lots reach into territory the standard reference does not occupy.

Sources